Vlad Is Still Missing

The Ides of March are upon us and the President of the Russian Federation is still missing. As of tomorrow, there will have been no credible public appearance of Putin for 10 days. Very odd behavior for a man that seems to enjoy being in the public eye. The rumors are crazy. Things like...

There has been a coup. He is under house arrest. He has had a stroke. He has the flu. He is with his gymnast girlfriend awaiting the delivery of their bastard offspring. He is planning a conventional military attack on the Ukraine and Europe while in a "secured location". Check out The Daily Mail;  It goes on and on.

We should know something tomorrow and by the 18th at the latest. Tomorrow he has a high level meeting scheduled with the president of Kazakhstan and on the 18th there is supposed to be a very public celebration of the annexation of the Crimea in Moscow. If he doesn't show for that one, I think we can right him off as a past leader of the Russian Federation. 

And this may be unrelated, but there was a major fire in Moscow today at the Novodevichy monastery which is just 4 kilometers from the Kremlin. Interesting times eh?

Where In The World Is Vladimir Putin?

The president of the Russian Federation has not been seen in public since March 5. He has disappeared. There is no reliable source that can provide his whereabouts and it has sparked rumors of coup de tat.

There is also another lesser story under way from Twitter regarding evacuation of Russian embassy personnel in London. Apparently they have all returned to the homeland over the last few day.

I really hate to see Vlad's reign come to an end. He has been the only world leader willing to stand up to the 'Evil Empire' over the last few years. The Zionist/US/British cabal that currently runs world affairs needs someone like Putin to keep them in check. If he is erased, who will take a stand against the malevolent western powers?

We need him.

 

Power From On High

There are many Christians for whom the Holy Spirit is a mystery. Though He indwells our bodies, we really do not notice His presence in our physical and sensual state. We know He is within us, because he was promised in God's Word. It is, as I like to say, a knowing rather than a feeling.

So what does the Spirit do in our lives? Who is He? A real personage? Genuine divinity? How does he work?

In researching this subject, I have taken a number of ques from Dr Jack Cottrell. He seems to have things nailed down as it were. I like things nailed down. I would recommend his book on this subject, "Power From On High". It is an extensive study to say the least and it must be absorbed slowly. Give yourself time to read and re-read so that you understand. He gives you the scriptures and he does not take things out of context. There is a continuity and a flow that is in harmony with the New Testament. This is important. It is not a touchy feely exposition. It is logical and intellectual, and to my mind, this does not translate to boring. Get yourself a copy. I am still trying to wrap my mind around his work, but I think it is beginning to soak in. It is different, in many respects, from what I was taught early on in church, but I do believe it's right and I say that from both a experiential and critical point of view. This is not to say that I have a right to judge the work. I am no scholar and Dr Jack is a scholar. The man makes me think. That's all.

So what I have learned is this in a nutshell.

We receive the Holy Spirit during water baptism. When we go down into the water we also receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and regeneration of our spirits occur simultaneously. It is really an answer to one of the great mysteries of the faith, but this is the way the Bible indicates our conversion happens. It is to mind a miracle and we barely notice it from a sensory perspective.

Titus 3:3-7 (NASB)

³ For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, ⁵ He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs ^[a]according to the hope of eternal life.

So what does the Holy Spirit do for us? His main purpose is to help us stand against the infernal dark powers of the evil one...The Holy Spirit gives us will power that we did not have in our previous life as unsaved sinners. He works through the Word and prompts our minds to recall what is needed to withstand temptation. We can walk away if we are willing to cooperate with His power in our lives. Ignoring this power that we are given to do right instead of wrong can be disastrous for the Christian. It is possible to become insensitive to this power and we can find are selves back where we were when we started. This is a grievous place to be. Spiritual death is a terrible thing and some do not even realize it is happening.

I have not finished the book, so I will probably share more later. I will leave you with this warning.

Hebrews 6:4-6 NASB
    
⁴ For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, ⁵ and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, ⁶ and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, ^[d]since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

God Gave Them Over...

I have been asked if there ever comes a time when God gives up on redeeming people that He allegedly loves. My answer is yes. There comes a point where rebellion against God becomes self destructive activity. The pursuit of pleasure, gratification of the physical senses and unbridled desire for wealth and possessions can all become replacements for God in our lives. When we begin to worship created things or even ourselves, this does not sit well with God.

And that is what Romans 1:18-32 is all about. In ancient times, people knew...they were aware of...they had knowledge of the One True God. They knew that He is a Holy God, intolerant of sin. They knew what He expects in this regard. Even so, the flesh was willing, but the human spirit was weak (as it is today). People of that time wanted what they wanted (as they do today). If God would not bend to their wills, they would replace Him. And this is exactly what happened. The ancient peoples of the earth replaced their Creator God with gods of their own making, created in their own images. These were gods that they could control coupled with religions they could control, independent of any actual divine interference. They successfully decoupled morality from faith in their invented gods so they could do as they pleased. And since they abandoned the One True God, He abandoned them...He gave them over to their own desires and a depraved mind to sin until the sins destroyed them....their physical bodies. One of the features of this 'giving over' was sexual perversion. And it is a fact that in the worship of these ancient, invented gods, prostitution was practiced. There were both male and female temple prostitutes and they would practice their trade with worshipers of the same sex and the opposite sex. This even happened in the temple in Jerusalem and it did not sit well with Yahweh. So, as Romans 1:24, 26 and 28, Paul says that God gave them over to their desires.

Does this mean that God has any particular hatred of sexual sin over other sins? Well, yes and no. All sin is sin because it is against the will of God. However, sins committed with the body are particularly odious to Him, especially if the offender is a believer. But since we are not talking about believers here, the answer is no. Paul is just saying that this is many times the way the road to Perdition starts. People abandon God to pursue their our own self interests, whatever those might be. As they set themselves up more and more as their own God, they begin to create their own reality and morality and so do as they please. This process leads to every kind of sin and sexual sin is a major part of that equation as well as selfishness, greed and the list goes on. The result is usually destruction of the body and desensitizing of the human spirit. The spirit becomes less and less able to respond to the divine call and then finally it is too late. 

Believers, both then and now, look at these depraved people in the world and we tend to condemn them out of hand; we judge them. Paul warned us about that too. In chapter 2 of Romans, Paul says,

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. ² Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. ³ So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? ⁴ Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
⁵ But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. ⁶ God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”^{[a] 7} To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. ⁸ But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. ⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; ¹⁰ but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favoritism.

Yes, we who call ourselves Christians, sin too. Even in our saved state, we will always stand in the need of God's grace, love and forgiveness, so we should not judge others too harshly. The same process of replacing God with our own desires can happen to those of us that believe. We modify our Christian faith to fit our own mold of what we think is moral and right, and to our eternal condemnation, we become like the unbelievers.

God gave us believers His Spirit to dwell within us. We need to listen to His Spirit's encouragement to do the right things and stand firm. And we also need to help rather than condemn those that are stumbling in their walk with Jesus without inviting sin into our own lives.

This is what we were called to. God has given us over to His Righteousness. We must NOT exchange that for the cultural lies of our time. 

The Stuttering Waitress

I was reminded of the stuttering waitress incident this morning when I walked into HyVee to order my breakfast. At the front of the line was this large 6'5" bearded man attempting to order breakfast. The cashier was extremely patient as he tried to describe what it was that he wanted to eat. He had no volume control for his voice, so while he stuttered through his order, he was also very loud. He would go through this rapid fire machine gun type noise (ah ah ah ah ah) before he could get his words out and he changed his mind several times through the course of his order, so the process took a while. At this time, I can still hear him across the restaurant as he eats and attempts to communicate to the people he came with. I'm hoping they do not ask him a lot of questions. They are obviously kind and compassionate people.

I realize it's politically incorrect to laugh at such things because the man could obviously not help himself, so even though I was laughing on the inside, I tried to display the appropriate amount of empathy on my face. I have had to learn empathy (as well as sympathy and compassion) since I have no natural well of my own from which to draw these emotions. Being a bit Asperger-like in my own demeanor, these things just do not come naturally to me.

And that brings me to the story about the stuttering waitress. It seems like it was another lifetime at this point, but I was having dinner with my best friend. Yes, I had a best friend. Hard to believe now, but I did. I will call her Denise and not use her real name here, but she was the very best friend I have ever had in my life. We knew everything about each other and in some very basic ways, we were like each other. We were both INTJ's. We would laugh at the same things as they occurred naturally in our environments - like stuttering waitresses. This is hard to explain so I won't. Suffice it to say, we did laugh together a lot. We were both easily distracted by the little things in life, but in different ways. And we were political and religious opposites even though we grew up in similar environments. We argued a lot. We were the same and very different in multiple ways at the same time and that's what made our relationship interesting. We had some long breaks in our friendship and I think it has finally ended for both of us now with this last break. I was the one to end it this time. It has not been a bad thing for me. The only thing that irritates now with regard to Denise is that there is someone still out there that is alive and knows everything about me. I hope that she remains circumspect. That's all.

Anyway, we walked into this restaurant and we were about the only people in there. It was in this small town here in Iowa and the whole experience was surreal. The waitress looked perfectly normal as she approached the table with the menus and some water. But then she began to speak. We immediately looked at our menus and tried very hard not to burst out laughing. Denise was kicking me under the table as she suppressed a deep need to release the hilarity of the moment. We managed to get through the ordering process and that took some time. If we had any questions for the waitress, it would take forever to get answers in their complete form. We learned not to question.

The meal was good as I recall and the service was good, but the communication was difficult. I suppose it would be like having a waitress that did not speak much English. That would be equally funny and fun. Those were some interesting times.

So let me close with a question or three. Why would someone that is challenged by their ability to communicate work in an occupation where communication is important and required for success? Can you imagine a stuttering radio personality or 911 operator? What would working in a call center be like if you stuttered?

I will leave you with this. If you encounter a stuttering waitress in your life adventures, do not laugh, but have some fun with it. It was hilarious.   

There Are Some Things You Can Get Away With...

There are some things you can get away with. What I am talking about is Christian morality. It is probably the culture that has infected the church, but there are some things we tolerate within the church because 'it is what it is' as they say. I like to call them socially acceptable Christian sins. I'm not talking about anything messy like pornography, murder, robbery, rape or gay marriage. I am talking about those nice tidy 'everyone has that issue' sins that we never talk about at church because everybody knows somebody that is afflicted by them.

We stand in our pulpits or sit in our classroom chairs and we talk about the awful state of the world and how happy we are that we do not live that way, what ever 'that way' may be, but quietly and under our noses, there is one thing that does not pass the Christian smell test.

Some will say I am not qualified to talk about this because I am not married, but I tell you I am, if only because Jesus was not married and Paul was not married and they both talked about this sin.

That sin is divorce. I am sorry, but there should not be divorce in a Christian family and yet the rate of divorce within the church is nearly equal with that of the world in general. It is a crime against God's plan for His people and yet it happens. And please note, I am not talking about those that were divorced prior to conversion here. I am talking about families that were formed within the church that become broken while serving Christ. Here is what Jesus said about divorce.

Matthew 19:1-12

 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. ² Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
³ Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
⁴ “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’^{[a] 5} and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’^[b]? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
⁷ “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
⁸ Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ⁹ I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
¹⁰ The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
¹¹ Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. ¹² For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

There you have it. In God's eyes, a man and a woman that are married to each other become one unit. When divorce happens and then remarriage to others, these men and women commit adultery.

There are so many rationalizations for this behavior. We tell ourselves that since it's ok to remarry after the death of a marriage partner, then since I consider my ex dead to me, I can remarry and live the way I want to. Another popular rationalization is that marriage was different in Jesus' day. Men could divorce their wives for burning the toast; this is not true today, so the concept of divorce and remarriage is different.

No it is not. It is still adultery. There are other rationalizations for remarriage after divorce, but I will not go into them now.

My point here is that the American evangelical church tolerates this less than optimal situation and so there are divorced, remarried adulterous people that are active members in the church. Sin is present in the body and no one does anything about it. We preach it time and time again, that marriage is between a man and a woman and is forever in God's eyes, but we tolerate divorce and a remarried adulterous state among the membership. We are no different than the pharisees that Jesus was talking to.

We are basically saying that adultery is OK. We expect better, but we can live with it. We won't stand for fornicators, perverts and molesters, but if it's just adultery, well, everything will be all right.

That is a bit simplistic isn't it? Nevertheless, Christ's standard is what is written above. Christian divorce (oxymoron) and remarriage raises so many questions. Is the remarried state of divorced people recognized by God? To be moral, must they leave their new partner and go back to their old partner? What about the blended families? Can we split them up? Is that a problem?

You see this is what divorce does. It makes a mess. It makes a mess every bit as big as any other sin and many times divorce happens because of other sin problems within the marriage.

Now I do not want to be like the pharisees here. I am not a legalist (anymore). I have sinned and I will probably do so again. And yet I am in the Church. The other Christians at church tolerate me despite my sin and as long as they don't have to hear about it :^)))

So here is what I propose. Let all the sinners in. All of them. Let's quit squawking about specific sins. Let's uphold the whole standard and try to help each other to heaven at the same time. We are all broken. Let's help each other with the cleanup in aisle two.

God and Sin

As I sit here at the HyVee restaurant waiting for breakfast, I am really not sure where this is going to go. It is not going to be doctoral material, but there is the possibility that it will be correct, so please bear with me.

Maybe we should start with a definition here first. What is sin? From my study, it is anything contrary to the will of God. Please take note here that I am talking about the one true God. You might identify Him as the Christian or the Hebrew God. He is certainly not the demon that is worshiped in Islam.  He is the Lord God and he hates sin.

There are many things that are contrary to His will - things that constitute sin; things that humanity has regularly participated in since it first started making its own moral choices. We are a sinful race. We are able to choose to do or not do things that are within God's will. This is the way He created us. He wanted us to be able to see the choices before us and choose to do His will and refrain from all things sinful. I am sure that, as our Creator, He knew that this would be a battle for us, but that ultimately some of us would make the right choices if we had the correct information. He supplied us with the Law as handed down to Moses so that we would know what sin was; so that we would be without excuse. He sent His Son to refine our understanding of what sin is and how to live without it. Most importantly though, He gave His son a mission to redeem us from our bad choices and empower us to make the right choices. Once His Son's work was finished, God sent those of us who believe, His Holy Spirit. He was and is God's permanent presence in the lives of those of us that believe. He indwells us and strengthens our will power to withstand temptation and the urges of our decaying bodies to sin. I have left some very important things out of this equation for the sake of brevity, but the bottom line is that God knows we will sin. He knows we are weak. And this is why He has provided us a way out and and a way back to Him. He had to do this. If He did not, judgement and eternal condemnation would have been required. He did not want that for us.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, wrote a letter to the Roman Church explaining these things much better than I am doing now. In the first few chapters of the letter, Paul outlines how humanity ended up in their present sinful condition. He leaves no wiggle room for anyone. We have all sinned. Chapters one and two are and indictment of the human race and Paul makes no distinction between unbelievers and believers in his condemnation of sin.  

ROMANS 1:18 - 2:11

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

2 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. ² Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. ³ So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? ⁴ Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

⁵ But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. ⁶ God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”^{[g] 7} To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. ⁸ But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. ⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; ¹⁰ but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favoritism.

The world is an evil place. We all live in a fallen state. Our physical bodies have been corrupted by the works of sin. We have become weak and cannot save ourselves from God's wrath that is overdue because of sin.

The answer is Jesus. He is the only way out of the condemnation of God and He is the only way into a right relationship with God. Paul discusses this in depth in his letter to the Romans and maybe we can discus that tomorrow or in the near future. Tomorrow however I believe we will look at Romans 2:1. This is a scripture which gets regularly ignored by believers when the study of chapter one commences. It must not be glossed over. It points a finger directly at the self righteousness of believers. It is a warning shot. Christians, know this; no one is righteous. 

Generation Jones

Wikipedia says,
Generation Jones is a term coined by the author Jonathan Pontell to describe the cohort of people born from approximately 1954 to 1965.^[1][2][3] Pontell defined Generation Jones as referring to the last years of the post–World War II baby boom.^[4] The term also includes first-wave Generation X.
The name "Generation Jones" has several connotations, including a large anonymous generation, a "keeping up with the Joneses" competitiveness and the slang word "jones" or "jonesing", meaning a yearning or craving.^[5][6][7][8] It is said^{[by whom?]} that Jonesers were given huge expectations as children in the 1960s, and then confronted with a different reality as they came of age during a long period of mass unemployment and when de-industrialization arrived full force in the 1970s and 1980s, leaving them with a certain unrequited "jonesing" quality for the more prosperous days in the past. The generation is noted for coming of age after a huge swath of the population had come immediately preceding them; thus, many Generation Jones members complain that there was a paucity of resources and privileges available to them that were seemingly abundant to Baby Boomers born earlier. Therefore, there is a certain level of bitterness about and a "jonesing" for the level of freedom and affluence granted to older boomers but denied to their generation.<sup>[9]

Ya, I'm Jonesin'. 

Us Generation Jones types are the butt end of the Boomer generation and man does it feel like it. Our Boomer brethren took all the money, shipped out our opportunities to China and burdened us and the generations after with an unpayable debt. We have been made debt slaves, born to pay for the retirement plans of the most selfish generation of humans in history.

I'm telling you now that I will not participate. We need to get our act together along with the generations that followed us and refuse to pay the Boomer's bills.  Repudiate the debt of these blood suckers and let them die. They are pustules on the body politic that must be lanced. There will be scars, but so be it. The time is now.

Boomers you are on notice. We will not carry your load. It is not our job. You are leeches that steal from your fellow citizens and you produce nothing but pain for others. It's time for you to go.</sup>

Gingers Have No Souls

That is just one of the epithets I have had to endure in my lifetime thanks to those wonderful creators of South Park. I can assure you that this redhead does have a soul and it's much more sensitive than you might think given my INTJ status on the Meyers-Briggs personality inventory. 

There are other forms of hate speech used to denigrate those of us that belong to the master race. I have heard "carrot top" which is really stupid if you consider that carrot tops are green. There is "red headed step child". This one is particularly nasty since I am not a step child and what if I was? There a millions of step children in the world. Why does the color of their hair matter? Another name I heard, particularly in high school was "red on the head like a @#$% on a dog". I assure you that the color of my glorious high school locks did not match that of male dog genitalia. And while the sight of orange pubic hair can be scary when seen for the first time by others in a high school locker room, I assure you that "Fire Crotch" is not a complimentary designation. There is also another myth, and here I speak for myself alone I think; the rumor is that we are really hot sex partners. The fact is that this red head is celibate. My sex drive is probably abnormally low and I really don't care. It's just one less burden from my point of view. Now there may be other red heads that have unquenchable desire in this area, but me....it's all crickets and cobwebs.

There is much hate and, I think even jealousy in regard those of us that enjoy the privilege of ginger status. It's like a mark has been placed on us by God as a warning to them. There is no doubt that we are individual, mostly because of the "hairist" environment that we have to live in, but that makes us even more special.

We are a rare item in the world among the human race. Wikipedia says,

Red hair occurs naturally in 1–2% of the human population. It occurs more frequently (2–6%) in people of northern or western European ancestry, and less frequently in other populations. Red hair appears most commonly in people with two copies of a recessive gene on chromosome 16 which causes a mutation in the MC1R protein.^[1]
Red hair varies from a deep burgundy through burnt orange to bright copper. It is characterized by high levels of the reddish pigment pheomelanin and relatively low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The term redhead has been in use since at least 1510.^[2] It is associated with fair skin color, lighter eye colors (gray, blue, green, and hazel), freckles, and sensitivity to ultraviolet light.^[3]
Cultural reactions have varied from ridicule to admiration; many common stereotypes exist regarding redheads and they are often portrayed as fiery-tempered.

The fiery temper thing...really? I am so sick of that one. It makes me want to throw my tablet across the HyVee dining room and scream at all the bigots. How could anyone say such a thing? Miserable jerks. It's just not true!!!

Then there is this,

Today, red hair is most commonly found at the northern and western fringes of Europe;^[1][9] it is associated particularly with the people located in the British Isles (although Victorian era.^{[citation needed]} Ethnographers consider the Udmurt people of the Volga to be "the most red-headed men in the world").^[10] Redheads are common among Celtic^[1][9] and Germanic^{[citation needed]} peoples.
Scotland has the highest proportion of redheads; 13% of the population has red hair and approximately 40% carries the recessive redhead gene.^[11] Ireland has the second highest percentage; as many as 10% of the Irish population has red, auburn, or strawberry blond hair.^[12] It is thought that up to 46% of the Irish population carries the recessive redhead gene.^[1] A 1956 study of hair color amongst British army recruits also found high levels of red hair in Wales and the English Border counties.

So be careful with us. Be gentle. Be nice. Imagine we are white tigers or some other exotic creature of which there are few. We are special. I know everyone believes that about themselves, but we really are special. Among all of God's human beings, He blessed us with this glorious mark. My soul is uplifted because He loved me so much that He made me a ginger. I am His, chosen from before time and creation to be a red head. Praise the Lord for Gingerosity.  

February 26th Was A Rough Day In Flathead County Montana

From the Police Blotter of the Flathead Beacon

7:16 p.m. A sibling argument over a toothbrush was overheard during an accidental, or not so accidental, call to 911. Either way, no emergency was identified.
8:52 a.m. In some sort of weird “retaliation” effort, people reportedly rolled numerous 250 pound tires across some property on Point of View Drive in Whitefish.
9:39 a.m. A woman in Bigfork reported that someone had been in her house eating her food.
10:27 a.m. A Kila resident suspects that a local realtor has been stealing property on Emmons Canyon Road.
11:51 a.m. A woman was arrested for felony theft after a showdown at an Evergreen business.
12:20 p.m. Someone reported that the black Mercedes parked in the handicapped spot in front of a Bigfork business did not have a handicapped sticker.
12:57 p.m. A Hungry Horse man reported that the neighbor’s dog was loose again. He said that he contacted the neighbors, but they pretended to have no association with the animal.
12:57 p.m. A resident Highway 35 in Kalispell reported that someone told him that his neighbor has been lying on the couch, dead, for several days. The neighbor was found to be alive and well.
2:51 p.m. A woman on Deer Trail reported that a man handing out flyers was in her garage yelling at her, forcing her to take a flyer.
4:39 p.m. A man on Highway 35 in Kalispell reported that a woman and her “associates” have stolen numerous items from him.
5:05 p.m. A Whitefish resident called in with a “long story” to tell.
8:14 p.m. Someone found a diaper bag lying in the middle of Highway 2 East.
10:00 p.m. A motorcycle fell out of a pickup traveling down Conrad Drive.

Alzheimer's Disease

Do you know anyone with Alzheimer's or any kind of dementia? I do. It's a terrible thing to watch, particularly when it's a family member or loved one. My Dad has Alzheimer's. He was in the early stages before Mom died and I have been watching over him since her passing. It has not been pleasant, but there have been, strangely, blessings that have come from our increased interaction with each other over the past 4 years. We have had an opportunity to get to know each other again and even in his diminished capacity, Dad can be an interesting man to talk to. And since we were not close when I was a child and a teenager living in his house, this time in our lives has brought us back together. It was tough for both of us in the beginning.

After Mom died, I moved in with him to make sure he ate. I took over his financial affairs and I try to do for him what I can to make sure he remains comfortable and undisturbed by the realities of the world. I get him out to the doctor and try to manage his health care as best I can. He is in good condition for someone that has so many things wrong. He has afibrillation of the heart, which, in its current state, is uncorrectable. He has grand mal epilepsy, which he has had to deal with all his life. No seizures since 1968 thankfully. And now he has this insidious, gradually increasing dementia.

Until now, his chief difficulty and personal issue has been time. He never knows what time it is. He never knows what day it is. He does not even know what year it is, even though they shout it at him on television all the time.

There are also entire portions of his life and my childhood that he does not remember. This is probably a good thing.  The sixties and seventies are a blank slate for him. I have trouble with the seventies too, but for different reasons...that was a joke. He also sometimes thinks that my uncle, his brother, is me. There is some family weirdness there because my grandparents would also sometimes refer to me by my uncle's name. The whole thing baffles me.

Then last Saturday a new symptom reared it's head. Dad told me that he didn't think the people on the television could see him, but they had been asking him questions and he had been answering. I actually witnessed this behavior last night. He would test it by standing behind the screen because he thought they might be reading his lips. He is convinced now that people on television are talking to him.

I believe we might be approaching the time when Dad has to make a move to a care facility. It's either that, or I quit my job and stay home with him. I could probably do that. It would just be a matter of finding some affordable health insurance for me and selling some property.

Anyhow, I would ask that you pray for me and for Dad while I consider our options. I do not want to accelerate his condition by taking him out of a familiar environment and I really hate to take him away from the dog. He loves Oliver (wheaton terrier) and in some respects, Oliver is a major help in keeping Dad active and thinking. They have adventures together like getting the mail, taking out the garbage and catching the possum that got into the basement. They are a team and great comedy relief for me. I love them both and I really do not want to separate them. But a decision looms nevertheless.

There are also my guilt issues, but that will have to be for another post...maybe. I should have been a Calvinist. I was born guilty.

Gots to go now.  

UFO's

I have been hearing the stories all of my life. Saucer shapes, cylinder shapes, deltas, bright, fast moving multicolored lights that make sharp turns at high speeds in the sky or rising out of the oceans. The reports are ubiquitous. And I have to say that I find it all fascinating. I have read volumes on the UFO phenomenon. It is very entertaining above everything else. I am fascinated by these things that ordinary people experience every day, but cannot be explained. I am fascinated by the need of the authorities, whoever they might be, to explain it all away in some trivial fashion. It all reeks of conspiracy and secrecy and the idea of "what are they not telling us". I also find the whole abduction phenomenon more than passing strange because so many people have experienced it. It has ruined peoples lives and made a handful wealthy.

Where am I with all this? Do I "believe" in UFO's? Is alien abduction a reality?

The answer is yes to both questions, but with an explanation. and I probably should write a book about it (:^))

There are things in our skies every day that I cannot identify. Maybe someone can. I cannot. One such event occurred last summer. I had arrived at work. I had just exited my truck. It was still dark. I felt prompted to look up at the stars from the parking lot. It was a clear, dark early morning star field. I was looking straight up, directly overhead. The stars were beautiful, but I noticed that one of them was moving west to east at a fairly high rate of speed. The object looked like all the other stars; it was a pinpoint of light, but it was moving. There was no apparent exhaust trail. It was just moving fast. In just a split second, this moving star veered north - a 90 degree turn at high speed. It then overtook another motionless "star" and that star disappeared. It was like pacman. Then it continued north and blinked out of view.

Explain that one. I cannot. It was very weird.

My experience with abduction is very limited too. I pretty much just chalk it up to bad dreams because it mostly happens when I'm trying to sleep. Sometimes it's like I leave my body. I see things and people that were but are no more. There is more I could say here but I wont. You might know me and be thinking that I need committal, or at the very least, some counseling. I think I'm fine.

So yes, I think both of these phenomena are real. I just do not accepts the conventional explanations for the sources for the phenomenon from either the believers or the debunkers. While I do believe the government may well be responsible to some extent with experimental aircraft; I think much of this could have a spiritual, demonic origin. Still it fascinates me. I am drawn to study it. I would actually like to take a vacation and go in search of UFO's. A trip through southern Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada would be 'da bomb. Some day I'm gonna do it.

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get" - Forrest Gump's Mom.

James Says Resist The Devil and He Will Flee From You

Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. So says James, the Lord's brother in James 4:7-10. Here it is:
 "⁷ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. 

Really James? He will flee?

He makes it sound so easy doesn't he? That's my issue with James. He preaches these little vignettes about different moral issues and he makes it sound so simple. It's like he's giving us the spiritual version of, "Duh". It annoys me, but as I have pointed out before, Truth can do that. I just hate it when someone makes me feel stupid and lazy. You would think I'd be used to that by now. 

I will just say it. The bluntness and clarity with which James writes hurts my feelings - yes I do have them. Sometimes he makes me flat out angry. Again, I think these emotional reactions are the result of hearing the truth. It is God's Spirit working through His Word, coaching me, making me better, making me try harder. Even so, a kinder, gentler James would have been nice.

James leaves me feeling convicted. Even though he does not directly condemn, I still feel convicted, like I need to do something.. He pushes me.

For those reasons alone, I recommend reading the epistle. James is motivational. He will make you think.  And if we really follow his advice, the Devil will flee. The problem I think comes when we fail to put down the initial temptation and it progresses to contemplating sin. Once we reach that point, we have lost. The poison has entered the system.

In his review of Thomas Brooks 17th Century book, "Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices", 
Tim Challies offers ten ways to resist the Devil.

1. Be Ruled by the Word. Make the Word of God your rule and authority and live in obedience to all it says. It will keep you walking straight and guard you from all manner of temptation. “When men throw off the Word, then God throws off them, and then Satan takes them by the hand, and leads them into snares at his pleasure.”
2. Beware of Grieving the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that gives the Christian the ability to discern Satan’s temptations and to see his hand in and behind life’s circumstances. If you grieve the Spirit, you drive off the one whose ministry involves guarding you against Satan’s attacks.
3. Labor for Wisdom. There is a great difference between knowledge and wisdom, between accumulating facts and applying Scripture to those facts so they become wisdom. It is not the Christian with the most knowledge, but the Christian with the most wisdom, who is equipped to battle Satan’s temptations.
4. Resist the First Stirring of Temptation. It is safe to resist temptation and dangerous to dabble in it. “He that will play with Satan’s bait, will quickly be taken with Satan’s hook.” God promises that we can resist temptation, not that we can resist sin once we have begun to dabble in that temptation.
5. Labor to Be Filled With the Spirit. The Spirit is a Spirit of light and power. The Spirit’s light shines bright against the darkness of sin and his power is sufficient to overcome all evil and temptation. When it comes to fighting Satan’s temptations, it is better to have a heart filled with the Spirit than a head filled with facts.

6. Keep Humble. A humble heart would rather lie in the dust than rise to prominence by sinful means; it would prefer to lose everything than to sin and be left with a guilty conscience. The humble person is neither drawn in by what Satan offers, nor terrified by his threats.
7. Be Constantly on Guard. A secure soul is a soul in a position to be led astray and ensnared. “That soul that will not watch against temptations, will certainly fall before the power of temptations.” Satan strengthens his assaults when the soul grows drowsy and careless. So be constantly on guard. “Watchfulness is nothing else but the soul running up and down, to and fro, busy everywhere; it is the heart busied and employed with diligent observation of what comes from within us, and of what comes from without us and into us.”
8. Continue Communing With God. It is as you join in communion with God that he gives you strength to resist Satan’s attacks. “A soul high in communion with God may be tempted, but will not easily be conquered. Such a soul will fight it out to the death.” Take full advantage of God’s means of grace.
9. Do Not Engage Satan In Your Own Strength. You need to draw the power, and even the desire, to resist sin from Jesus Christ and you need to do this every day. “Certainly that soul that engages against any old or new temptation without new strength, new influences from on high, will fall before the power of new temptation.” Commune with God, be on guard, be humble—do all of these things! But do not rely on them in the battle; instead, rely on Christ.
10. Pray Constantly. “Prayer is a shelter to the soul, a sacrifice to God and a scourge to the devil.” So pray and pray constantly. Tell God of your own inability to detect and respond to temptation; tell him that you are utterly dependent upon his grace; tell God that Christ’s blood has been applied to you; tell God that you are his child; ask God to deliver you from temptation for the glory of his name.

Some good stuff there.

I Am In Mourning

                                                             

I will always remember where I was when I learned that Mr. Spock died. I was standing up in my cubicle at work when Charlie, a coworker, got the news on his smart phone and announced it.  You expect Vulcans to live a long time, but it's still a shock to the system when they go. I guess he was half human.

This is not the first time that Mr. Spock died. You may recall that he gave up his life once for the good of the many when he entered the matter - anti matter reactor on the star ship Enterprise to make repairs that saved the ship and everyone on board. He lost his life this first time only to take it up again after his internment on the Genesis planet where they tested the Genesis effect of terraforming worlds.

The Genesis effect resurrected Spock, but he was never quite the same after that. He seemed transformed by the process. Many thought he would live forever after that. As it turns out, he did not. He went the way of all humanoids. He will now return to dust.

He did indeed live long and prosper. Rest in Peace Mr. Spock

The Mind, The Heart, The Soul

These things are at the center of who we are as humans. I know there are some that would say that the mind is located in the frontal lobe of the brain. Some would also say that our hearts are in our chest, functioning as a multipurpose pump and valve that keeps the physical body alive with oxygenated blood. And many, especially those that rely on science, will tell you there is no soul.

For people that actually believe these things, I often wonder how they arrive at any moral approach for living. I think the answer is that they have to steal their morality and life philosophy. Normally, they purloin the Judeo-Christian morality if they live in the West. Even then it gets bent and warped, since they do not believe anything beyond the physical exists.

The truth is that the mind, the heart and the soul are part and parcel of the same thing. The mind tends to be less emotional and more intellectual. The heart (not the pump in you chest) tends to be the seat of emotional responses like empathy, sympathy, lust and anger. They both combine in the soul which is the non-physical part of a human.  The ancients knew of these things, even the ancient pagans. I too am certain of this. I have experienced both the oneness of body and soul and also the separation of the two. I will not elaborate on this except to say that I know there is life outside the bodies we have here. It is a spiritual existence that is different than what we live here.

In the metaphysical sense, it is best if our hearts and minds work in unison. It makes for a more peaceful existence here in the three dimensional realm. Many times however, the heart wants things that the mind knows are not good - not good for the health of the physical body and or not good for the spiritual health of the whole human.  This is why it's best for the mind to control the desires of the heart. It is less emotional, more logical and is more knowing than feeling. Jesus spoke of the deceit of the human heart when he was discussing what it is that makes a man unclean. He said,

Matthew 15:16-20

¹⁶ “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. ¹⁷ “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? ¹⁸ But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

For the Christian, this is why both the mind and heart need to be controlled by the Spirit of God. If this does not happen, there can be conflict between the two or worse, the two will be in disagreement with God's Spirit. Not a good situation.

This is why Paul calls for the renewing of the mind.

Romans 12:1,2

12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

The notion of presenting oneself as a living sacrifice is scary. But if we offer ourselves in submission to God; if we submit our minds and hearts to His will, we will be transformed. We will lose that self destructive edge that every human seems to carry and then we will be able to live lives of peace in union with our Creator.

How do we offer ourselves, submit ourselves to God to achieve this transformation?

Obedience. Yup. Sounds easy, but we humans tend to learn obedience by being disobedient. This is unfortunate, but it is true for many of us even among believers.

Use your mind to control the waywardness of your heart and submit to God in obedience and peace and internal conflict will not be such an issue. Some of us are more submissive than others and so the process will be easier for some than others, but sacrificing yourself may involve some pain just so you know.

For me it has been a life long struggle for many reasons. Maybe some day I will have the testicular fortitude to explain it in words or on a screen or publicly out loud, but that time is not now. Suffice it to say, God's Spirit  is moving in me as I seek to submit. It's when I seek to please myself or concern myself with what others (besides God) think, that I get into trouble.

I think most of us know what we have to do. We just fail to do it full time. Living sacrifices tend to crawl off the altar to escape. The thing that will stop that is the death of the sacrifice. We have to choose to die to ourselves and submit to God. Simple and tough, but true.

So is it possible to live a sinless life in perfect harmony with God's will? Can we live our lives and not sin? At least occasionally?

My heart tells me no, but my mind says yes...lets do it and see what happens (:^)))

Someone Was Reading the Daily Ground Hog Today And I Know Who

Call me paranoid, but this blog had an unusual amount of traffic today and most of it happened all at one time, like within a 5 minute period. I pulled up the stats and I showed 241 hits today. On a really good day, TDGH gets 40 hits. I know that sucks, but I don't like crowds.

I also get a report on percentage of browser types used and also operating systems.The operating system used in the time period specified that had the highest percentage (98) of use was Linux.

I do not know many people that use Linux on their desktops, laptops, tablets or phones. Linux is usually for the big industrial users and government. Wikipedia says,

"It is the leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers and supercomputers,^[14][15][16] but is used on only around 1% of desktop computers.^[17] "


So, naturally, being the conspiracy freak that I am, I have chosen to assume the worst. I believe that official ears have scanned TDGH and from the looks of it, they hit every blog post and comment. Who else could do this in such a short time period? Who else would bother with a nearly nonexistent blog? And who else would waste precious taxpayer resources on someone like me?

You know who! The picture above explains it all.

And you know what? It's ridiculous. I am a Christian Libertarian, but I am not dangerous. I do have ideas and I do like to make people think, but I am not - repeat - not dangerous. Cynical and sarcastic at times, yes, but otherwise I am meek, mild and unassuming.

Isn't there a banker or an ISIS member you can spy on? Now them guys is dangerous...just sayin.

You Can't Handle The Truth

Have you ever heard the expression, "you create your own reality"? I am finding that after 57 years on the planet, most of us do this to one degree or another. We have this construct in our minds of what the world should be and who we are in it and we then build it according to our own design; in our own image, if you will. I think this is because we cannot handle the truth. We cannot handle the truth about ourselves, about our circumstances, about our friends, about our jobs and the companies we work for, about whatever...

We construct a tissue of lies and proceed to believe them and live them so we do not have to deal with the nasty details of what makes our cushy lives so cushy.

Right now there is a factory in China that employs 250,000 people where they make a certain brand of cell phone. These people live at the factory in dormitories and eat at the company cafeterias. In essence, they are slaves, indentured for a period of time to satisfy the desires of your teenagers to have a hot cell phone. There are mills in India, Sri Lanka, and throughout the African continent that make designer clothing. The shirt that you paid $75.00 for cost .50 cents to make in Colombo. Little Haggi works his fingers to the bone 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, so we can be stylish.

Our government deliberately destabilizes middle eastern nations like Syria and Iraq so that our allies (Saudi Arabia) can build a gas pipeline through those countries to the Mediterranean and Europe. Our government distracts the Russian bear in Europe by destabilizing Ukraine, so the pipeline project can be finished.

This is just the tip of the New World Order iceberg that is headed toward us. We face a future of robots, drone surveillance, genetic modification and genocide that is not far off.

One of these days people, this carefully designed world you have created for you and your family is going to completely unravel if you do not wake up and smell the coffee.

I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer here. I just want you to be prepared when the feces hit the oscillating wind device, and I am not talking about being a prepper when I say that.

Our lives in this world are short. Depending on where you live, it could be nasty, brutish and short. There is life beyond this one. It is eternal. Where you spend it is not dependent on what you have managed to construct for yourself here. It is dependent on your knowledge and acceptance of the truth. The truth is that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life and no one will see the bright side of the day after judgement day without acknowledgment of that fact. Hell is real. Spending eternity there is not a prospect that anyone should look forward to. Ruling in Hell is not better than serving in heaven.

The single most important thing that you can do for yourself and for your children is to cozy up to Jesus and talk to him about your future. Get a grasp on the real truth and toss out the reality you have constructed for yourself. It is not real. Stop believing your own lies, bend the knee to Jesus and let Him open up the real truth for you.

I think you can handle it.

How Just One Thing Can Ruin Your Day

Maybe this is just me, but all it really takes is for just one thing to go wrong in my workday and the rest of the day is a complete loss. I work in a small office and there was a dispute today between two employees. The cause of it was an email sent from one employee to the other (in the next cubicle and why would anyone do that?). The receiver interpreted the intent of the email in a negative way, did not like the wording and thought that the sender was trying to supervise her. I do not believe this was the intention, but it happened and the rest of my day was spent trying to keep the peace while conferring with my boss about the situation. Now it looks like HR will get involved and I am so tired of it all, I could scream.

This ground hog needs to retire to a nice burrow in Belize, but he cannot for a number of other reasons, one of them being the care and feeding of Papa Ground hog.

Human beings are bent. I do not exclude myself from the "bentness" of the race.  I do not want to seem self righteous. But really people; work these things out and be willing to admit when you might be wrong.

Why is the world in this condition?

The Church Lady knew.

It's Satan. He has been dogging me too and I'm sick of it.

This was probably incoherent. So be it. That's the way I feel right now.

Lord, please make Wednesday better. Please ask our common enemy to go play some place else tomorrow. Thanks. I know I need to man up and be able to deal with these situations, but that might not be so good either. Show me what you want me to do. I need some rest now. It's going to be tomorrow in just a few seconds 

Trouble in Flathead County

There are really awful places to live in this world (Iraq, Syria, Los Angeles) and you would think a place like Flathead County, Montana would be a paradise compared to them. However, if you read the Flathead County Beacon Police Blotter, you realize there is trouble everywhere...even in Paradise. All of this happened on February 10th. Glad I was not there. The last two entries are my favorites. There is more at the Beacon! 

10:58 a.m. A woman reported that her sister punched her in the back of the head while she was driving.
1:27 p.m. A Bigfork resident reported that his roommate “went nuts” and broke his stuff.
2:01 p.m. A Hungry Horse resident fell victim to some kind of internet software scam.
2:19 p.m. There is an ongoing dog barking issue on Cayuse Lane.
2:57 p.m. A Somers resident who was home sick complained that he was unable to rest because his hyperactive upstairs neighbor was too noisy.
3:24 p.m. A Whitefish resident reported that someone stole his muscle stimulating unit.
5:17 p.m. One power tool was stolen by a medium sized man in Lakeside.
6:17 p.m. A potentially intoxicated woman called from Hungry Horse with complaints regarding the drunken man she lives with and his inability to build a fire that gives off enough heat, but not too much.
11:49 p.m. A Kalispell woman reported that her neighbor’s house smells like chlorine and it’s giving her heartburn.

Spiritual Experience

Spiritual experience is a difficult thing to talk about, mostly because it is after all, spiritual. Spiritual things are not quantifiable in the empirical sense. They cannot  be measured except in the most subjective of terms. I think this is why 'science' will not even study it or acknowledge that there is such a thing as an actual human spirit or a spiritual world. We, as humans, tend to keep things like this in little boxes that we bring out at church or at the yoga class or the latest new age festival during the vernal equinox. We separate our physical existence from our spiritual existence and the result is a grave misunderstanding of what it means to be spiritual and human.

God created us as both body and spirit. It is what makes us unique among all His creations. We are incomplete when our bodies and spirits are separated. It is an unnatural state for a human being. Hence death is an unnatural state for a human being, yet we do die, fragile things that we are. And there are a number of reasons for this phenomenon which goes beyond the scope of this blog post.

Suffice it to say that if death is a separation of our eternal spirit from our bodies, then why is it that we live as though we were already dead, separating our spirituality from our lives in general?

Even Christians, who are fully aware of these things do this and it needs to stop.

We are at our most complete as God's creations when our spirits live in harmony with our bodies and we are at peace with God's spirit that dwells within us also. 

And therein lies both the beauty of spiritual experience and the tyranny of it. Because of the inherited tendency of humans to live outside of the will of God, the body wars with the spirit and if the said same body also has God's spirit within, then the war intensifies. Many Christians collapse exhausted during this war and settle for a less than fabulous existence, falling into a cycle of sin, repentance and forgiveness that stunts spiritual growth and retards spiritual understanding. It's a tragedy and it can be prevented. Even Paul talks a bit about the problems of doing what he does not want to do in Romans 7. It is a pervasive issue. And it becomes more complicated when we begin to believe the lies of our adversary who will always pretend to be on our side until we self destruct.

So the question is....is it possible to live without conflict between body and spirit and with God's spirit. My answer would be yes, but it is not easy and it is not probably something you will be able to do alone. For myself, I am someone, who from all appearances, does not need the help of others. The fact is that as I age, I am finding that God's Spirit is pushing me to seek out others during times of spiritual conflict so that when my end comes, I will have a good finish. Truly, I am becoming obsessed with this idea.

Jesus and Paul said that we need to die to our physical selves with it's desires and emotional reactions and interactions and be lead by God's Spirit. And while this is correct, I think many Christians see this as some sort of emotional experience when it's really not. Christian spirituality is not emotionally based. It is intellectually based. Our salvation and our spiritual well being comes from a knowing and not a feeling. We need to be informed. We need to know. And while winning this war between spirit and flesh is fraught with emotional issues, we need to stay focused on the One that saves. Our spirits need to work in conjunction with God's spirit to quiet the brokenness of our physical bodies and live in harmony with God. It requires our cooperation. We have to participate in our own rehabilitation. It will not be magical....oh, would that not be easy....but I digress.

It also is instructive, helpful and necessary for us to work within a framework of community to achieve this purpose. That community is the church. Within our churches there are thousands of years of spiritual experience, both good and bad, that we can draw on. The support of our brothers and sisters through prayer and personal communion is essential to this process.

This means sharing our spiritual issues with others, and while I would rather have hemorrhoid surgery than share my personal spiritual issues with anyone; if I really want resolution to my spiritual issues, this may be my answer. There are all kinds of reasons not to do this. My mind is calculating all the negatives right now.

But if I want to be able to live in harmony with my God, both in body and in spirit, it would behoove me to seek all the assistance I can get.

After all, we only get one soul. Our bodies will be replaced by a newer, more eternal model. If this one collapses from withdrawal, so be it.

Got to go to work now.